Behind My Blue Eyes

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Journey

Alex sat on my bed and watched as I moved around my room packing things away.  Michael had told me I would need to travel lightly so I was only taking the essentials. I put my brush in the bag and took one more look around the room.  My room was clean as usual.  The posters of a few bands and some landscape paintings looked back at me now.  They seemed to have an air of abandonment as if they knew I was leaving. 

“When you get back,” Alex started to say.  I refrained from telling her I might not come back.  “You might have a niece or nephew.”

My head snapped around at her like a mousetrap.  I fell on the bed next to her with my mouth open.  “Oh gosh.  How...but...how far along are you?”

“About a month or maybe a little more.”

“Oh. Okay, have you told Nick yet?”

She shook her head and bit her lip.  Worry claimed her features.  “I don’t want this to like the others.”  A tear rolled down her cheek and fell on her shirt.  She wiped it away then raised her brown gaze to me.  “I think he might know though.”

“How?  Oh, right I forgot.”  Nick was her Isarayo.  He was her other half and her soul mate.  Of course, he would know or at least be suspicious.  I reached and put an arm around her.  “You want this pretty bad don’t you?”   They had lost a few others before though the doctor said there was nothing wrong with either of them.  I thought it was the demon blood my family has.  Alex was a Light Wing.  An angel and a demon would have a rough time having a baby.  She nodded then leaned into my embrace.  I was taller than she was so it was not awkward.  “Maybe my mom could help or Serenity.”

She paused thinking it over.  “I had never thought that their magic would be any help.  In fact, I didn’t think magic would help at all.”  I thought that was no surprise since she was raised the human way and only learned about magic when she met my brother.  “You know I’m going to miss you.”  I did not feel sad when I was talking to the rest of my family after Michael had left.  But hearing her say that made me sad.  “Promise me you try to keep yourself safe.”

“Do I ever get into trouble?” I asked dryly.

“Nope.”  She straightened and shook her head.  Then she offered a rueful smile. “It tends to find you.” I laughed with her but knew that was true.

My mother was crying.  I saw the tears roll down her face as I said good-bye.  She turned to my father when I let her go.  He was looking so sad too.  I knew that they had to have been talking for a long time to be able to let me go. 

“Sweetie,”  my mom said in a hoarse voice, “I knew you had something special to be the moment I set eyes on you.”

“Yes,” my dad added, “we knew that you would have a destiny that would take you away from us.”

I looked at them with confusion. “How did you?” 

My mom smiled with teary eyes.  “Your aunt.”

“Oh.”  She had a vision when I was born. They knew I was supposed to have a destiny but not what.  Serenity doesn’t normally give out the whole vision.  My parents knew they would have to let me go one day.  At that moment, I realised how much I loved them.  My eyes started to burn.  I moved away from them to my brother Jesse. 

“Stay out of trouble squirt.”  He smiled and hugged me.  He had really agreed with me that I should go.  My brother was only two years older and I think he was my closest sibling.  He knew that this was what I wanted to do and it was my fate.  His smiled was still sad though.  

“Trouble can’t seem to stay out of me.”  I grinned but my heart was not in it.  I was leaving my family to go on some journey that I knew nothing about.  The world suddenly seemed to drop the curtain and now I could see how large of an audience is carried. I was going into unknown territory and I had nothing familiar to carry with me.  My memories would probably be the only comfort I had while gone...but who said I would make it back.

I felt a hand on my shoulder startling me out of my thoughts.  I looked up and into black eyes. Michael’s face was completely calm and serene. How could he feel that way when I was in turmoil? 

“Breathe priestess.”  He mumbled. I glanced up at him then to my feet.  Light Wing and their empathic skills could be a bit unnerving sometimes, especially when I had none to start with. I took a breath and blew out slowly, letting all of my anxieties go with that breath.  “Say your final goodbye.” 

I felt my body go rigid in physical rejection of what I was going to say.  Even my mind was against it.  I was going to leave my family to chase a destiny that might fail me. I bit the inside of my lip to keep my tears from getting past my eyelids.  I swallowed a lump before I could speak. “I...Goodbye I love you guys so much but I have to do this for me...and whoever might need me.”  I watched tears roll down my mother’s cheeks and my father tear up.  My siblings leaned on each other silent but tearful.  My family was going to let me go because I wanted them to but that just made it harder.  My throat felt like it had rocks poured down it.

Michael nodded towards my family and led me by my shoulder away from my family. We were going to use a more unconventional way of traveling.  I had a duffel bag and a smaller backpack with my things in them.  Both had been enhanced to feel lighter than they were thanks to Jesse.  That would fade in a few hours though since the charm wasn’t permanent.

I held my things while Michael shed his jacket.  He had kept his jacket on the whole time even when he came inside the house.  The fact that it was summer made that even stranger. Now what he had taken it off though I saw why he had kept it on.

I felt my own jaw drop as a pair of pristine white wings each about five feet long unfolded from his back. They were so beautiful and each feather seemed to shine a little how white they were.  They fluttered a little as Michael turned to face me. 

“Where is the locket?” The wings folded against his back again, acting as a perfect white background for his face. 

I dropped my bags on the ground and started to pull the locket over my head.  He held up one hand stopping me.

“No...You must be wearing it for this to work.”  I placed the necklace back in its place. “Now pick up your bags again.”  I did as he said and watched as he sat on the ground.  He closed his eyes and went still.  I blinked a few times and stood watching wondering what on the-third-planet-from-the-sun he was doing or trying to do.  Boredom set in after a while and I looked around where I was. It was evening time and the sun was about to set.  The area of forest where we were had that dark blue tint to it that it normally got at this time.  When I looked back at Michael he was glowing...literally.

When he opened his eyes they were still dark though.  “Come here.”  I walked slowly towards him still in awe at the beauty of his wings and the ethereal glow that surrounded him. 

When I was within arm’s reach he took my hand in his and closed his eyes.  I simply stood there with my bags and his warm hand covering my own wondering what he was doing behind those closed eyelids. In a few moments I felt my feet feeling tingly.  It was as if I was no longer standing on solid ground and my feet were trying to keep steady.  The tingly numbness spread through my body making me feel like I was no longer there because despite the physical changes my mind and thought patterns stayed the same.  It was close to what I’d call an outer body experience.  The world fell away around me as I watch the colours of the forest slide out of view, like wet paint on a wall sliding away, and other colours slid into place.  The colours soon took shape slowly and the tingling receded leaving me feeling light-headed. 

I didn’t realise that I had stumbled until Michael put his hand on my shoulder steadying me.  “We’re here Priestess.”  She looked around at the field surrounding them.  It was a rich green grass that was as tall as my knees and smelled sweet.  The light was a lighter more white colour than the usual golden sunlight of earth.  And the air, it hummed with life and magic.  I had been here before and I knew where I was.

Majailea, I thought as I smiled to myself.